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Monday, November 16, 2015

WARNING!!! RANT INCOMING. Why I'm annoyed at a local grocery store.

Usually I write
positive, heartfelt, pieces about things that inspire me. Food, people, travel, the theatre. Today I’m going to rant about a place that’s been bugging me for
awhile.

It’s a local
grocery store that I won't name.

It’s Giant
Eagle’s snobby sister.

Why can’t you hire
some baggers, UNNAMED GROCERY STORE ? I don’t want to spend fifteen minutes in
the checkout lane while your friendly cashiers study every third item they ring
up from my order. I’m not interested in sharing recipes in the grocery lane. I
do that on my blog. Not only do they ask what I’m going to use the Thai coconut
curry sauce for, but they then take forever to file it neatly into just the
right cheap plastic bag. One cashier and one bagger for each cash register.
That’s all I’m asking for.

In most people’s
opinions, this UNNAMED GROCERY STORE’S prices are high compared to other
stores. In fact, in April 2015, consumerreports.org ranked Giant Eagle stores
in general among the grocery store chains with the “worst prices in the
nation.” With such high prices, this store should be able to afford to pay
baggers. Give a high school kid a job for goodness sakes! Quit spending profit
to pay the tuxedo-clad piano player who’s pounding out Beethoven’s 9th
and clogging up lane 15. Use the surplus cash to pay a bagger. Your less fancy counterpart doesn’t have a
string section in the dairy aisle, but guess what they have.

Baggers!

There’s a laundry
list of reasons that this particular grocery store gets on my nerves. I’ll point out just a few.

There are always
at least a bazillion workers re-stocking in every section. They tote extra-wide
bins that are nearly impossible to navigate a shopping cart around. Less
stockers. More baggers.

Every lane has a
ridiculous amount of minutiae piled on brand new fashionably rustic shelves,
obstructing cart traffic and causing lines of shoppers to develop on either
side of these super-practical things they’re offering. Things like raspberry
scented dog toothpaste or toaster covers with Justin Bieber’s face silk
screened onto them. Can’t live without these things.

There’s no great
magazine section and very few greeting cards to pick from, but UNNAMED GROCERY
STORE sells ostrich eggs. Giant
alien-looking eggs that are draped in fake straw and marketed to shoppers in
farmy-looking yellowish baskets that are probably made in China. Why such a
crappy greeting card section, UNNAMED GROCERY STORE? Is your target market seriously
more likely to buy an ostrich egg than a birthday card?